Kapp Prize Awarded to Student Presentations
Elisabeth Bletsch and Jessica Paige received the Ronald O. Kapp Honors Day Prize for their outstanding Honors Day presentations in the social sciences and humanities.
The Kapp Prize is named for the late Ronald O. Kapp, who was an Alma College biology professor for 32 years and vice president of academic affairs for 20 years.
The prize is open to all students and groups, and each division is judged for the quality of both the research and the presentation by a panel.
From left: Catherine Fobes, Elisabeth Bletsch, Jessica Paige, Joanne Gilbert.
Elisabeth Bletsch, a Zeeland senior, presented “Gendered Grief: A Comparative Study of Bereaved Mothers and Fathers After Child Loss.”
In her study, Bletsch explored the ways in which child loss disrupts the life course of bereaved parents. Her paper shared the findings of a study in which she interviewed 18 parents in the fall of 2010 about their grief processes after experiencing child loss.
Jessica Paige, a Charlevoix junior, presented “A Slayer With Family and Friends; That Sure as Hell Wasn’t in the Brochure: The Rhetorical Construction of Relational Power in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’”
Paige’s analysis of the TV show’s major female characters, focusing on Buffy, revealed an underlying structure of traditionally feminine expectations in relationships as well as Buffy’s use of her relationships to motivate and sustain her fight against evil. Her presentation examined and contrasted “feminine power” with “feminist power.”
Posted: Mon, April 18th, 2011 at 8:01AM
